If you have a problem with the third act, the real problem is in the first act.
BILLY WILDERLove is the hardest thing in the world to write about. So simple. You’ve got to catch it through details, like the early morning sunlight hitting the gray tin of the rain spout in front of her house.
More Billy Wilder Quotes
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You’re as good as the best thing you’ve ever done.
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Money makes even bastards legitimate.
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Jerry: Oh, you don’t understand, Osgood! Ehhhh… I’m a man. Osgood: Well, nobody’s perfect.
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I am big. It’s the pictures that got small.
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The more subtle and elegant you are in hiding your plot points, the better you are as a writer.
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If there’s anything I hate more than not being taken seriously, it’s being taken too seriously.
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[about the Hotel Marmont on Sunset Blvd., a piece of Hollywood history] I would rather sleep in a bathroom than in another hotel.
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I, you know, am all over the place – every category of pictures I have made, good, bad or indifferent.
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I had one life. And what did I do? Wasted it in some palooka preliminaries in Spain, just before Hitler and Chamberlain warm up for the main event.
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Hindsight is always twenty-twenty.
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She was an absolute genius as a comedic actress, with an extraordinary sense for comedic dialogue. It was a God-given gift.
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If you’re going to tell people the truth, be funny or they’ll kill you.
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I met a lot of hard-boiled eggs in my life, but you – you’re twenty minutes.
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I have never met anyone as utterly mean as Marilyn Monroe. Nor as utterly fabulous on the screen, and that includes Garbo.
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Now, what is it which makes a scene interesting? If you see a man coming through a doorway, it means nothing. If you see him coming through a window – that is at once interesting.
BILLY WILDER